Blizzard has set the date for its next major MMO content expansion with the retail release for World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor now set for November 13th 2014.

More importantly, accompanying the announcement is another one of the studio's famously impressive cinematic trailers, and going one further, they're also kicking off a new "animated lore miniseries" titled Lords of War, which promises to be continued in the weeks ahead.

‚ÄúPlayers will encounter an epic cast of legendary characters and a huge amount of content to explore in Warlords of Draenor,‚ÄĚ said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. ‚ÄúThe countdown to the arrival of one of the greatest threats in Warcraft history has begun. We can‚Äôt wait to send everyone through the Dark Portal this November.‚ÄĚ

Warlords of Draenor adds a world‚Äôs worth of exciting new content for World of Warcraft players to discover. As Azeroth‚Äôs displaced heroes venture across Draenor, they‚Äôll build and manage a mighty Garrison, a customisable fortress that grows with them on their journey; delve into otherworldly draenei temples and clash in the heart of hostile orc clans‚Äô territory; fight the opposing faction for control of Ashran, a huge and dynamic PvP zone featuring a variety of personal and cooperative objectives; and take on a wide array of Dungeons, Raids, Battlegrounds, Challenge Modes, and more. No matter what kind of content you enjoy, your legend is waiting to be forged on Draenor.

From what I'm reading it seems to be more of an "alternate" timeline that will happen alongside the real one (where they did drink the Fel Blood) and the alternate one comes crashing into the current timeline. Or a wizard did it.

Theres no retcon at all happening, its pretty much what glynd said. Garrosh escapes with the aid of some bronze dragonflight dudes (for reasons that I think are currently unknown), and they hook the dark portal to up to an alternate timeline version of Draenor, at the time just before the orcs drank Mannoroth's blood. Garrosh brings all his iron death machines that he had built during the siege of orgrimmar, the stuff from the cinematic happens, now theres a new uncorrupted orc horde with a whole bunch of technology from (what relative to them is) the future, and they come back through the dark portal to rape and pillage present day Azeroth in our timeline (that will be the pre-expansion event that happens in 6.0).

Then the expansion is about us going back through the portal to alternate-past Draenor and shutting down the Iron Horde. Basically though, outside of a lore explanation for it all, it was Blizzard wanting to roll out all the old iconic original Warcraft characters since its the 20th anniversary of the franchise, and getting WoW back to feeling like classic Warcraft, and tbh they could invent any story they want to to explain that, I'm just happy its happening :p

We have no clue how they plan to open the Dark Portal considering Medivh was the one who did it, and that was a result of the Orc corruption and its butterfly effect. This expansion is quite...messy, lore wise.

Actually, we have every clue. When you first get to draenor the very first thing you do is a huge battle on the steps of the Dark Portal where you want to shut it down and stop them bringing more Iron Horde through. They've chained up Gul'dan and the other members of the shadow council underneath the dark portal and they're siphoning out his power to fuel it (and they're sacrificing heaps of people in rituals and s*** to power it too).

Its not messy, think of it like a 'What if' or Elseworlds version of Warcraft history. Its like the version of Draenor that happens after Biff gives himself the sports almanac.

Also, Khadgar is a muthaf*****' boss in that first intro bit where you're taking down the dark portal after just getting to Draenor. Was good to see some characters besides the green jesus get to do badass stuff for a change.

Is it a different dark portal entrance from azeroth? Haven't played in ages, but am curious how people would get to the shattered current world or the whole previous world. Also does the world still have edges into the void? Or oceans or something now? Time to google a map I think, god I love WoW maps.

Yeah, it has oceans now. Zangarmarsh is also now the Sea of Zangar, and Shattrath is a coastal city! Auchindoun exists in all its un-shattered glory and theres no Bone Wastes, its still a forest (thats Talador). Nagrand is mostly the same except for a few differences like no floating islands, and the ogre ruins aren't ruins yet, they're actual ogre cities. Gorgrond and Frostfire are new zones, but they were what formed the Blades Edge Mountains when Draenor got shattered, those areas got mashed into each other, hence all the upthrust spiky bits in blades edge.

Shadowmoon valley is all tranquil and not full of fel fire, and the Black Temple is still the Temple of Karabor and is all shiny. Farahlon (that island on the top right of the map) is what becomes Netherstorm, but its not gonna be in at launch, probably be patch content in a future patch. And Spires of Arak is a new zone that has no counterpart in Outlands. Its the homeland of the Arakoa, and tells the whole story of how the Arakoa went from being these majestic winged dues, to the hunched, twisted, cursed ones in TBC (I'm looking forward to this zone the most I think).

I dunno how it'll work with going to the current Outlands, its the same Dark Portal but I guess there'll prolly be portals to Shattrath somewhere (like, old Burning Crusade Shattrath) so you could get there that way. And maybe as you're levelling, going through the dark portal before 90 just takes you to the old Burning Crusade content?

I wonder if whole sections of The Blasted Lands will be phased for lvl 90's and above? The Iron Horde take out both the Horde and Alliance bases in that area after they come thru the portal and head up to UBRS.

I'm so confused. A WoW ad appeared in my facebook feed which said to click it to get Mists for free, which I did, and went to my battlenet account (thankfully wasn't a scam because I didn't think to check the URL until after I'd logged in, lawl), and now it says that I own it, but there's no visible history of any other expansions I've bought, or my normal WoW account.

Also, it says in transaction details that I paid $39.95 for it, and they have my old credit card details saved. I'll be hilariously slightly upset if I actually just paid for it.

Looks like they just gave all inactive accounts free upgrade to mop.
Nice stuff.
Now go spend 60$ and free /90 and flood the pick up raids asking questions like, what's a battle stance ? I'm new to wow, got it an hour ago, how to I heal ?

Ahhhh yes, that's what happened. The Mists game is my whole WoW account now, not the free starter edition thing under it, and it has my transaction history and characters in the char transfer list. Woo.

The transaction date seems to be in the same month that I last paid for a subscription. Looking at my bank details, it doesn't look like I got charged, though the card is expired anyway.

Looks like they just gave all inactive accounts free upgrade to mop. Nice stuff.Now go spend 60$ and free /90 and flood the pick up raids asking questions like, what's a battle stance ? I'm new to wow, got it an hour ago, how to I heal ?

I don't pick up raid anymore....

In WoD, you have to complete a "proving grounds" to be eligible for raids/heroic dungeons. So you pretty much have to prove that you're not full frittata with your class to queue for heroics.